Contents

Initial Worship

If an altar of The Pactmaker is found in the dungeon, and the hero is not yet worshipping any other god, it is possible to pray to Pactmaker.

Immediate effect

When first worshipping The Pactmaker, several effect occurs:

The Pactmaker will award you with one Piety points for every 10 tiles you have already explored in this dungeon.

The exploration Piety reward is given based on the number of tiles explored so far, including all tiles that are fully visible on-screen at the moment of joining The Pactmaker's religion.

Tiles "half-explored" through enhanced scouting radius (available to the Half-dragon and through items) are not considered explored, and are not counted for this effect.

If dividing the number of explored tiles by 10 leaves a remainder (for example, 134 explored tiles divided by 10 equals 13 and a remainder of 4), the remainder tiles do not give you any Piety.

Conversion

Followers of Mystera Annur may convert their religion to The Pactmaker at the cost of piety. The hero will keep any bonuses or penalties bestowed upon him by the Mystera, but will not trigger The Pactmaker's immediate effects as described above. You may convert by visiting The Pactmaker's altar and asking to convert:

Conversion from Mystera Annur costs 25 piety.

It also is possible to convert your religion from The Pactmaker to Tikki Tooki, by locating Tooki's altar and asking for it. Your hero will keep any bonuses or penalties bestowed by The Pactmaker.

Conversion to Tikki Tooki costs 55 piety.

Religion

The Pactmaker is the God of Existence. In his view, there is no "right" or "wrong" way of doing things, as long as you do them. Therefore, as long as you can prove your continued existence (by gaining levels), Pactmaker will be pleased.

The following actions will only change your Piety while worshiping The Pactmaker. If you have not yet converted to Pactmaker, or have renounced your religion, you may perform these actions without triggering the listed effects.

Gaining Piety

The Pactmaker will increase your Piety for performing the following actions:

Gain a level: +20 Piety.

All that is required to appease The Pactmaker is to gain levels. You will receive 20 piety points for each level you've gained since you began worshiping The Pactmaker.

Levels gained prior to worship are ignored. You are not awarded any Piety points for joining The Pactmaker at a higher level.

Losing Piety

It is impossible to lose Piety through actions when worshiping the Pactmaker. In theory, ceasing to exist would anger this god, but then you would already be dead and wouldn't care anyway!

Retribution

As you cannot drop below 0 piety while worshiping the Pactmaker, there is no retribution you can suffer from him.

Boons

The Pactmaker has 4 boons to offer to his worshipers at the cost of Piety.

Experience

Increase your experience by 10 points.

Costs 20 Piety.

Simply enough, this boon awards you with 10 points of experience. This is exactly the same as gaining experience from killing monsters, and will cause a level-up if the necessary amount of experience has been attained this way.

Learning

+1 Experience per kill.

Costs 45 Piety.

Once this boon is acquired, any monster you kill will reward you +1 experience on top of what it would otherwise give you. This bonus experience does not depend on your current level nor on the monster's level.

This experience boost is cumulative with other similar effects such as the Fighter's increased experience gain. Therefore, Fighters who acquire this boon will gain +2 experience on top of each kill instead of just their normal +1.

Health

These extra points are not automatically filled up. You will need to find a way to restore your Health yourself (via Potions, exploration, or any other method).

Strategy

The Pactmaker is maybe the blandest god, but because of this, it is also the most adaptable to your situation. Even if your other two choices are poor, the Pactmaker can be adapted to almost any class. It's important to worship the Pactmaker early, considering the only way to gain piety is by leveling up, and you get a LOT of piety for doing so. The first boon most people will need for the Pactmaker is Learning, for obvious reasons. After that, you can mostly ignore the Pactmaker until the endgame. If you have enough piety for Health or Mana, it's a judgment call as to which one suits your character better.

Most characters will benefit more from the mana boon than the health boon. This is particularly true if you have the defensive HALPMEH or CYDSTEPP glyphs, since the extra survivability that 10 mana will give you will far exceed the benefits of 15 hit points at the higher levels. If you lack these glyphs, you'll need to weigh how many extra attacks the health boon will give you against how many extra fireballs the mana boon will give you. Remember that these boons will also increase the potency of your potions once purchased, so saving the appropriate potion type for the end-game is extra important when worshiping the Pactmaker.

While worshiping Pactmaker is more beneficial the earlier in the game that you choose him, you shouldn't leap to worship him the moment that you find his altar. Instead, continue exploring until you're one kill away from leveling before choosing Pactmaker; the extra map exploration gained in the meantime will lead to more starting Piety. The difference is especially dramatic for Vampires.

Even if you find the Pactmaker later in the game, he may still be a reasonable choice for worship. The piety boost you'll get from exploration will easily cover the cost of Experience boon, and worshiping the Pactmaker could give you one extra level. You will never attain the health or mana boons, but if better end-game options like the Glowing Guardian do not exist the Pactmaker remains a viable choice.